On Jan. 18, in response to “blackouts” of popular websites, there was an enormous outcry over legislation in the United States Congress. Surprisingly, many young people were involved. A democracy where the public analyzes ,scrutinizes and pays attention to what their representatives do is amazing.
The shame is that this day is too good to be true. The outcry was against the bill H.R. 3261 known as SOPA and the bill S. 968 known as PIPA. The acronyms stand for Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act.
Google had a petition against these acts, and part of it read, “Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA”. Web censorship is a bad thing, but Google is not entirely truthful.
As Eva Rodriguez states on The Washington Post website, “Keep in mind, that the legislation targets foreign websites that would otherwise be out of reach of U.S. law enforcement…And in what is likely to be a less common course of action, only the Justice Department can seek a court order to have the foreign site blocked for U.S. viewers”.
The censorship mentioned by Google would seem to reader of the petition would be an authoritarian imposition on business. What is actually proposed is just an effort to stop shady business.
In the digital age there exists easy access to media and entertainment. Many people want free access to that media and entertainment. Those people seem to forget the reality of the matter that those things they want cost money to make.
What I find most troubling in not the dissent of the bills. I think the bills need to be revised and improved, but I do not think that the bills were antagonistic toward internet freedom.
This backlash against Congress was really a waste of energy. These bills really are not worthy of the large protest they received. Congress has made numerous other things that are worse than SOPA and PIPA, and the public shrugged them off. The protest against these bills could have been focused on a more important issue.
The most troubling revelation of this uproar is the power of the internet to influence the public. I am going to coin this “Big Internet.” This is just as dangerous as major corporate and oil lobbies, but people do not realize it.
Since people use sites like Google and Wikipedia on an almost daily basis, they seem harmless. People must believe that since these sites make their lives easier, they have their best interest at heart. The truth is that those sites are really just concerned with profit.
The reason they are lobbying so strong against regulation is that it hurts their bottom line. The sites that engage in piracy are popular because people want things for free. Big Internet does not want to lose that partnership.
Basically I am saying that just because a popular website endorses something, does not mean you should jump on the bandwagon. Like anything, you must look at the issue critically by examining facts, bias and underlying intentions.
Michael is a freshman majoring in political science with a minor in religious studies
